This choice: Use one of their friends • Go Back...Chapter #15Bully for You! by: Seuzz   You call the "back-up William Prescott" out to Blackwell's so you can modify its mask, sprinkling its insides with a special mix, some of your hair, and a bit of earth taken from one of the graves in the back corner of Blackwell's lot. You set it alight and, as you'd calculated, it burns only briefly. The inside of the mask is now the color of a golem's skin. You set it back on the golem. The latter was made to obey only Blackwell, but your modification should override that when it is wearing this mask. You set it a few humiliating tasks to confirm your calculations, and then send it home with orders to return early Monday morning so you can switch out and go to school yourself.
* * * * *
Thanks to Blackwell's "gypsy curse" you're not really afraid of trying to capture one of the minor bullies at the school. Mostly, you worry that the curse will keep you from being able to corner one.
You have your heart set on Lester the Molester, but it's David Kirkham who wanders into your line of sight: you're late for third period and hurrying through the hallways when you see him swagger out of Mr. Gelding's science class and into the bathroom across the way. As Mr. Gelding is one of the hard-ass teachers, that bathroom is strictly for business, and so you know Kirkham isn't ducking in for a smoke or to hang out with friends. You swing in after him, and sure enough he's already in a stall. Well, better to take over his body after a shit than before, you reflect.
You position yourself in front of the stall so that he'll run into you when he comes out, and sure enough he quails like he's been hit when he sees you. But it's dangerous to try cornering him, for Kirkham, though small, is a skilled and dirty fighter, and he might really hurt you if he tried to get past you. So you instead feign fear.
"I haven't got money for you today," you tell him with as much of a quaver in your voice as you can muster. He looks up at you over the tops of his shades, which he never takes off, even when indoors. Miserably, you jerk your newly made mask from your backpack. "Um, I've got this, though, and you can probably sell it for a lot of money." This is humiliating, now that it comes to it, but it's the strategy you've chosen, and grimly you stick to it.
"I don't want your lame-ass shit, Prescott," he says guardedly, and flinches as you hold the mask out to him.
"Come on, Kirkham, it's all I got," you whine. "It's, like, an antique that my grandmother gave me. It's worth money. Just shop it around at some of the stores."
With infinite loathing, he takes it, and holds it so gingerly that you can't believe that it doesn't slip from his quivering fingertips.
"Alright, fine, you're paid up for the week," he mutters. "Fuck, you're paid up for the year, if it's worth what you say it is."
"Sure it is," you reply. "Look, there's even a layer of gold on the inside." He glances down, and as his head bends toward the mask you sweep your hands up so as to knock it up against his face. For a split second you panic, thinking that his sunglasses might interfere with the mask, but it vanishes into him. He topples back, hitting the porcelain bowl.
This is a public bathroom in a major high school, and you are not about to try switching clothes with him while sharing a stall. So you wedge him up between the toilet and the divider so that he faces the stall next door. You take that stall, and watch with bated breath until the mask clatters onto the tile. You then lay flat on the floor so you can reach under the divider to press the mask of yourself onto Kirkham.
"Oh, Jesus," a familiar voice whines. "I'm sitting in piss."
"Just get undressed and pass your stuff over here," you order. You're already getting your own clothes off.
"These aren't the Molester's things," your double observes. "They're too small."
"They're Kirkham's, and will you shut up? I don't want anyone to hear us if they come in."
He accedes, and you sit on the toilet and put Kirkham's mask to your face. Everything goes dark.
* * * * *
Your heart is still hammering in your chest as you pull on his jeans and polo shirt, and you wipe your forehead with the back of your arm. Kirkham must have steel-reinforced willpower to have stood up to what you put him through. You've only the memory of the horror, and even then you have the feeling that you're only getting an echo twice removed. Something truly awful envelops William Prescott, like a cloak, and Kirkham can barely stand the sight of him, and would go mad if forced to touch him.
So after you're dressed you splash cold water on your face and rub it hard until rosy redness returns to your tanned cheeks. You are soon calmer, but still take time to study your new face in the mirror: small mouth with big lips set between a strong chin and strong cheekbones; stubby, upturned nose; small, characterless gray eyes. Not a handsome face, and rather pinched, especially since Kirkham's eyes naturally settle into a squint. But putting the shades on ... And smoothing your dark brown, rakishly cut hair so that the tips touch your eyebrows ... Standing back and bending so that the short sleeves of your black polo bind on your smooth, strong biceps ... You slip a toothpick from your front pocket and wedge it between cheek and gum. "Fuckin' A," you murmur admiringly to yourself, and swagger out, past Gelding's gay class, to one of the distant wings where you know some guys will be hanging out back—including Lester Brown.
"You smell like piss, Kirkham," the Molester jeers as you lean up against the wall next to him. You wheel around smoothly and slug him in the chest with a knuckle just slightly extended, so that it will really hurt him in the ribs. In a fury he strikes back, catching you hard in the jaw, but you're not so rattled you can't grab and swing him around, kick at the back of his leg so that his kneecap slams hard into the wall, and drop him. A fancy set of moves, but Kirkwell's reflexes are yours now.
As is his amazing capacity to withstand and master pain. Your jaw hurts, hurts like it's been cracked in two, and you can taste blood, but you keep your face rigid. "Next time it'll be both your knees, motherfucker," you taunt him. The sight of the Molester's face, flushed red like a fire engine, and his mouth split open in a silent rictus, is more than enough compensation for the pain in your own mouth. In fact, it gives you a bit of a boner.
You glance up at Pozniak and Maddox, who are pale and looking everywhere but at you and Brown. There'll be no trouble from them, not today, anyway.
"Okay, shake it off, pussy," you tell the Molester roughly. "Get up. You're not hurt." He glares at you, and shaking all over he pulls himself up to a sitting position, where he is forced by the pain to stop. "So it was good for me. How was it for you?" You put your hands on your hips and gaze around at the world as though it well and truly bores you. What will be your afternoon plans? | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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